Talk:Journal entries/@comment-5745743-20181008172901
formula, morality play, fantasy wrapped in a dystopian motif, literary retaliation, quorum, satire, undermining the social status quo of futuristic fiction, to erode the permanence of capitalist materialism that pervades a world of televisions and screens, fail to actually engage with meaningful context through the work and think that the broad strokes of appearance are what matters, what they don’t realise is that the material view of context is precisely the capitalist momentum subgenres like cyberpunk are meant to undermine, conflates with their uber polished, male centric, mass consumer products. No attempt to undermine the system, it revels in it. represents a game that has mastered the synergy between the ergodic agency of the player and the literary agency of the narrative. It was a hodge podge of design decisions wrapped in a very well painted fantasy tapestry. changed the mechanics of combat to fan outcry. the narrative arc of W3 is sweeping, and the result is a staccato of action-story-action-story, Criticism isn't bashing. It's actually part of the iterative development cycle of all narrative based media, that does not change that we can look objectively at the development, the history of game development, and this particular title's place within that structure. Nor does it stop us from looking at elements that are known and verified and comparing those to efforts of the past vs their outcomes. And again, Caleb, your only contribution is to attempt to discredit or belittle me personally and not to actually engage with the discussion. sporadic. At what point do you start taking criticism so personally that your recourse is simply to attack the person with a differing opinion, Chi-Loong Ho? First of all it's nice to see someone using Facebook, a platform for engagement, for engaging with people. However what I'm reading generally tells me that you clearly have some serious distaste for CDPR and I'm frankly surprised at your claims of 'male supremacy', or Eastern Bloc chauvinism and the like. It actually makes me wonder how much care you'd have for the whole genre of Punk and the like, as waving your degrees and status comes off as the kind of elitist snobbery and classist demagoguery this subgenre might include criticisms of. So for starters you differentiate genre and motif, telling us that Gibson's works fit the subgenre of CP, whereas games like this wear it only as motif. And yet, by definition (genre), is merely a classification of a type of art by similar form, content, or style. G.I.T.S. certainly doesn't, as a whole, focus on moral or socio-political aspects. Nor does Deus Ex. Nor, I imagine, will Cyberpunk. Nor did Bladerunner. They all told stories, and yes, in many cases they're very simple, very human stories. The need for homogeneity in message or focus isn't necessary to define a genre. Only that elements must be similar and repeating, themes present must be, and content must be. You also make the statement that in order to be Cyberpunk, a work -must- 'undermine the material view of context', as a form of 'capitalist momentum'. Either you have some rough idea of what you're thinking, or you've constructed some very interesting word salad here. Most of that doesn't apply to these other works that most consider CP. As much as works within the genre -can- for instance criticize an anarcho-capitalist 'Utopia', it needn't be their focus at all. Just a recurrent theme and influence within the work. As for Rockstar's games as viewed on any kind of pedestal, it beggars belief for me. GTA didn't even start out as social commentary, and I daresay any thinking person would quickly realize they don't even do that very well at all. The first game was a point-scoring arcade title where your goal was earning money. Vice City was by and large a play on Scarface. Rockstar's social commentary rarely hits its' mark. It's criticisms of modern life are often deeply sophmoric, incredibly hyberbolic, streams-of-consciousness ramblings that read like they've come from older men whose noble intent is continuously beleaguered by their own laxity of narration and unwillingness to really carry any of these points to their logical conclusion or to have any character really act on it. Their commentary frankly comes across as lazy, unspirited, immensely token. It is hypocritical, even cognitively dissonant, to critique a series as dominated by some manner of toxic masculinity and stunted by chauvinism, and to on the other hand hold any serious praise of the GTA series. A series with critically poor characterization, character development, immensely sophmoric humor, and one that, lacking any apparent 'message', ultimately revels in how making money by committing crimes, with the ultimate goal of pulling off a heist and walking away with a clean 30 million or so. What is enjoyable about GTA is the gameplay. If you can turn your brain off to the ham-handed, forced and very scrappy social commentary and extremely sophmoric 'humor', (Pisswasser, LifeInvader, anything that appears on TV). It's popularity is not because any of those other elements are done well, it's because of it's gameplay. What you can do and your freedom to do it in whatever way you do. Sean, every one of the points you make can be reduced to your disbelief in my qualifications and not anything more substantive than conjecture. intrinsic social commentary. GTA actually says something about the subject matter being represented. It actually engages with contemporary social anxieties and the malaise of urban life.